USA > Missouri > Centennial history of Missouri (the center state) one hundred years in the Union, 1820-1921, Volume I > Part 90
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The President appointed General Schofield to the command in Missouri and on the 27th of May wrote him this letter for guidance:
"Having relieved General Curtis and assigned you to the command of the department of Missouri, I think it may be of some advantage for me to state to you why I did it. I did not relieve General Curtis because of any full conviction that he had done wrong by commission or omission. I did it because of a conviction in my mind that the Union men of Missouri, constituting when united a vast majority of the whole people, have entered into a pestilent factional quarrel among themselves-General Curtis, perhaps not from choice, being the head of one faction, and Governor Gamble that of the other. After months of labor to reconcile the difficulty, it seemed to grow worse and worse, until I felt it my duty to break it up somehow; and as I could not remove Governor Gamble, I had to remove General Curtis. Now that you are in the position, I wish you to undo noth- ing merely because General Curtis or Governor Gamble did it, but to exercise your own judgment and do right for the public interest.
"Let your military measures be strong enough to repel the invader and to keep the peace, and not so strong as to unnecessarily harass and persecute the people. It is a difficult role, and so much greater will be the honor if you perform it well. If both fac- tions, or neither, shall abuse you, you will probably be about right. Beware of being assailed by one and praised by the other.
"Yours truly, "A. LINCOLN."
The Schofield letter became public,-"surreptitiously,"-The President sub- sequently explained. It prompted Governor Gamble to write, complaining of the reference to him as heading one of the parties to a "pestilent factional quarrel." Mr. Lincoln acknowledged the receipt of Governor Gamble's letter, but said he had not read the letter and did not intend to read it.
. Lincoln's Missouri Problems.
The first day of January, 1863, was one of the most momentous in the administration of President Lincoln. That day, after receiving the suggestions of his cabinet and after much consideration as to form and effect of what he was about to do, the President signed the Emancipation Proclamation. The next day he took up and, as he evidently supposed, solved a Missouri problem. This was the Pine Street Presbyterian church controversy. The Rev. Dr. Mc- Pheeters had baptized a little Missouri baby with the name of Sterling Price. This was one of the charges made against Dr. McPheeters by some members of his congregation who admitted his piety but questioned his loyalty. The charges were laid before the provost marshal. That functionary ordered the arrest of the divine and took charge of the church, relieving the trustees. The issue was carried to the White House, as was the custom, and the President, turning from weighty matters, wrote to General Curtis, commanding at St .. Louis :
"The United States must not, as by this order, undertake to run the churches. When an individual in a church, or out of it, becomes dangerous to the public interest he must be checked; but let the churches, as such, take care of them- selves."
Doubtless Mr. Lincoln thought he had laid down a broad principle that would relieve him of further appeals from either party to the Pine Street
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Presbyterian church differences. Dr. McPheeters was discharged from arrest. The President was immediately asked to restore to Dr. McPheeters his eccle- siastical rights. His reply was addressed to O. D. Filley, the head of the St. Louis Committee of Public Safety.
"I have never interfered," Mr. Lincoln wrote, "nor thought of interfering, as to who shall, or shall not, preach in any church; nor have I knowingly or be- lievingly tolerated any one to so interfere by my authority. If, after all, what is now sought is to have me put Dr. McPheeters back over the heads of a majority of his own congregation, that, too, will be declined. I will not have control of any church, on any side."
Individual, as well as church and state problems in Missouri were put up to Mr. Lincoln. On the 7th of January, the same week that the President had, as he thought, disposed of the Pine Street Presbyterian trouble, he received a message from B. Gratz Brown. The telegram was sent from Jefferson City. The legislature had assembled. Mr. Brown was a candidate for the United States Senate. He was elected but not until after he had encountered some difficulties. He wired :
"Does the administration desire my defeat; if not, why are its appointees working to that end?"
President replied promptly but in language that was diplomatic and per- haps somewhat cryptic :
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"Yours of today just received. The administration takes no part between its friends in Missouri, of whom I, at least, consider you one, and I never be- fore had an intimation that appointees there were interfering, or were inclined to interfere."
Charcoals and Claybanks the two factions of loyal Missourians were called. Mr. Lincoln tried to be neutral between them. In spirit, if not in so many words, his attitude was, "You all look alike to me." He would not take sides, but occasionally he expressed himself vigourously on the unhappy family situa- tion. In the spring of 1863 a Charcoal appeal was made to the President. Mr. Lincoln replied :
"In answer to the within question 'Shall we be sustained by you?' I have to answer that at the beginning of the administration I appointed one whom I understood to be an editor of the 'Democrat' to be postmaster at St. Louis-the best office in my gift within Missouri. Soon after this, our friends at St. Louis must needs break into factions, the Democrat being, in my opinion, justly charge- able with a full share of the blame for it. I have stoutly tried to keep out of the quarrel, and so mean to do."
President Lincoln continued to preserve strict neutrality between the Mis- souri factions. Judge S. P. McCurdy, of this state was a candidate for an appointment. The President, with his own hand, endorsed Judge McCurdy's . application :
"This is a good recommendation for a territorial judgeship, embracing both sides in Missouri and many other respectable gentlemen.
"A. Lincoln."
The President didn't believe in holding Missourians to strict account for what they might have said in the heat of oratory. Prince L. Hudgins, a lawyer
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quite well known in the war period, was charged with conspiracy against the government. He wrote to President Lincoln explaining that the charge was based on a speech he had made in St. Joseph several months before the law under which he was being prosecuted was enacted. Congressman King went to the White House and recommended a pardon for Hudgins. The President wrote on the papers :
"Attorney General: Please see Mr. King and make out the pardon he asks. Give this man a fair deal if possible."
And then, perhaps after a little more conversation with the Missouri Con- gressman, Mr. Lincoln added this to his indorsement :
"Gov. King leaves Saturday evening and would want to have it with him to take along, if possible. Would wish it made out as soon as conveniently can be."
The Seventy "Radical Union Men."
At 9 o'clock in the morning of the last day of September, 1863, President Lincoln, accompanied by one of his secretaries, came into the great east room of the White House and sat down.
"He bore the appearance of being much depressed, as if the whole matter at issue in the conference which was impending was of great anxiety and trouble to him," says one of the St. Louisans who sat awaiting the President's coming.
These were seventy "radical Union men of Missouri;" they had accepted that designation. They had been chosen at mass convention-"the largest mass convention ever held in the state," their credentials said. That convention had unqualifiedly indorsed the emancipation proclamation and the employment of negro troops. It had declared its loyalty to the general government. It had appointed these seventy Missourians to proceed to Washington and "to procure a change in the governmental policy in reference to Missouri." The movement had originated in St. Louis, and St. Louisans were at the head of it.
This action meant more than a city or a state movement. It was the precipi- tation of a crisis at Washington. It was the voice of the radical anti-slavery clement of the whole country, speaking through Missouri, demanding that the government commit itself to the policy of the abolition of slavery and to the policy of the use of the negro troops against Confederate armies. It was the uprising of the element which thought the administration at Washington had been too mild. President Lincoln understood that the coming of the Missourians meant more than their local appeal. The Missourians understood, too, the im- portance of their mission. On the way to Washington the seventy had stopped in city after city, had been given enthusiastic reception by anti-slavery leaders; they had been encouraged to make their appeal for a new policy in Missouri insistent and to stand on the platform that the border states must now wipe out slavery of loyal owners. Hence it was that immediately upon their arrival in Washington the seventy Missourians coming from a slave state put into their address to the President such an avowal as this :
"We rejoice that in your proclamation of January 1, 1863, you laid the mighty hand of the nation upon that gigantic enemy of American liberty, and we and our constituents honor you for that wise and noble act. We and they hold that that proclamation did, in
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law, by its own force, liberate every slave in the region it covered; that it is irrevocable, and that from the moment of its issue the American people stood in an impregnable posi- tion before the world and the rebellion received its death blow. If you, Mr. President, felt that duty to your country demanded that you should unshackle the slaves of the rebel states in an hour, we see no earthly reason why the people of Missouri should not, from the same sense of duty, strike down with equal suddenness the traitorous and parricidal institution in their midst."
The Missouri Movement.
Here was the essence of the Missouri movement which gave it national in- terest, which prompted the grand chorus of approval, which led to the series of indorsing ovations concluding with the mighty demonstration over the seventy radical Union men in Cooper Institute, New York City, with William Cullen Bryant, editor and poet, presiding. President Lincoln, pursuing the course which seemed to him necessary to keep the united North with him, felt fully the critical character of the issue which the Missourians were raising.
Conditions and events wholly apart from what was going on in their state added to the significance and importance of this conference between President Lincoln and the radical Union men of Missouri. The week before the seventy started from St. Louis for Washington that bloodiest battle of the war, Chicka- mauga, had been fought, and the whole North was depressed by the narrow escape of Rosecrans' army. When the Missourians arrived in Washington Hooker's army was marching all night long over the Long Bridge out of Vir- ginia and into Washington to take trains for the roundabout journey to Chat- tanooga to reenforce the penned-up troops, that they might not be forced north of the Tennessee by Bragg. Meade's failure to follow up the success at Getty ;- burg in July previous had given great dissatisfaction. In the cabinet there wa ; division over administration policies. The Presidential campaign was coming on in a few months. Perhaps at no other time since the beginning of the war had President Lincoln faced more discouraging criticism and more hostile opin- ion in the North.
And now came these Missourians to add to the burden. The address which the Missourians had prepared was read to the President. For half an hour, the chairman, Charles D. Drake, read in a deep, sonorous voice, slowly and impressively.
The address reviewed the origin and the development of antagonism between the Gamble administration and the radical Union men. It charged Gamble with the intention to preserve slavery in Missouri and asserted "the radicals of Missouri desired and demanded the election of a new convention for the pur- pose of ridding the state of slavery immediately." It dwelt at length upon the "proslavery character" of Governor Gamble's policy and acts.
"From the antagonisms of the radicals to such a policy," the address pro- ceeded, "have arisen the conflicts which you, Mr. President, have been pleased heretofore to term a 'factional quarrel.' With all respect we deny that the radi- cals of Missouri have been or are, in any sense, a party to any such quarrel. We are no factionists; but men earnestly intent upon doing our part toward rescuing this great nation from the assaults which slavery is aiming at its life."
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With the Missourians affirming such a position, it is not difficult to understand the wave of sympathy from the anti-slavery element which spread over the coun- try, taking the form of indorsements by newspaper, speeches by leaders of the anti-slavery people and enthusiastic public attentions to the delegation.
They Asked for Ben Butler.
The climax of the address of the seventy radical Union men was the prayer that Ben Butler be sent to succeed Schofield at St. Louis to restore peace and order in Missouri.
"We ask, further, Mr. President, that in the place of General Schofield a department commander be assigned to the department of Missouri whose sympathies will be with Mis- souri's loyal and suffering people, and not with slavery and proslavery men. General Schofield has disappointed our just expectations by identifying himself with our state administration, and his policy as department commander has been, as we believe, shaped to conform to Governor Gamble's proslavery and conservative views. He has subordinated Federal authority in Missouri to state rule. He has become a party to the enforcement of conscription into the state service. He has countenanced, if not sustained, the orders issued from the state headquarters, prohibiting enlistments from the enrolled militia into the volunteer service of the United States. Officers acting under him have arbitrarily arrested and imprisoned loyal citizens, without assigned cause, or for daring to censure Governor Gamble's policy and acts. Other such officers have ordered loyal men to be disarmed, and in some instances the order has been executed, while, under the pretense of preventing an invasion of Missouri from Kansas, notorious and avowed disloyalists have been armed. He has issued a military order prohibiting the liberty of speech and of the press. An officer in charge of negro recruits that had been enlisted under lawful authority, as we are informed and believe, was on the 20th inst. arrested in Missouri by Brigadier General Guitar, acting under General Schofield's orders, his commission, side-arms and recruits taken from him, and he imprisoned and sent out of the state. And, finally, we declare to you, Mr. President, that from the day of General Schofield's accession to the command of that department, matters have grown worse and worse in Missouri, till now they are in a more terrible condition than they have been at any time since the outbreak of the rebellion. This could not be if General Schofield had administered the affairs of that department with proper vigor and with a resolute purpose to sustain loyalty and sup- press disloyalty. We, therefore, respectfully pray you to send another general to com- mand that department; and, if we do not overstep the bounds of propriety, we ask that the commander sent there be Major General Benjamin F. Butler. We believe that his presence there would restore order and peace to Missouri in less than sixty days."
The Concluding Appeal.
The closing paragraph of the address was well calculated to impress Mr. Lincoln with the intensity of feeling inspiring the delegation. Perhaps in the history of White House conferences such strong language was never before used by a delegation in declaring the personal responsibility of the chief executive. The conclusion was in these words:
"Whether the loyal hearts of Missouri shall be crushed is for you to say. If you refuse our requests, we return to our homes only to witness, in consequence of that refusal, a more active and relentless persecution of Union men, and to feel that while Maryland can rejoice in the protection of the government of the Union, Missouri is still to be a victim of proslavery conservatism, which blasts wherever it reigns. Does Missouri deserve such a fate? What border slave state confronted the rebellion in its first spring as she did? Remember, we pray you, who it was that in May, 1861, captured Camp Jackson and saved
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the arsenal at St. Louis from the hands of traitors, and the Union cause in the Valley of the Mississippi from incalculable disaster. Remember the Home Guards, who sprung to arms in Missouri when the government was without troops or means to defend itself there. Remember the more than 50,000 volunteers that Missouri has sent forth to battle for the Union. Remember that, although always a slave state, her unconditional loyalty to the Union shines lustrously before the whole nation. Recall to memory these things, Mr. Presi- dent, and let them exert their just influence upon your mind. We ask only justice and protection to our suffering people. If they are to suffer hereafter, as now, and in time past, the world will remember that they are not responsible for the gloomy page in Missouri's history, which may have to record the independent efforts of her harassed but still loyal men to defend themselves, their families and their homes against their disloyal and mur- derous assailants."
Recollections of Enos Clarke.
The names of the seventy radical Union men of Missouri were signed to this remarkable document. The signature of Charles D. Drake of St. Louis, after- wards senator from Missouri, and still later chief justice of the court of claims at Washington, came first as chairman. Two Missouri Congressmen, Ben Loan and J. W. McClurg, the latter afterwards governor, signed as vice chairmen of the delegation. One of the secretaries was the late Emil Preetorius of the St. Louis Westliche Post. Three of the seventy signers were Enos Clarke, Charles P. Johnson and David Murphy. They were among the youngest members of the delegation. The half century and more gone by has not dimmed the recollec- tion of that journey to Washington and of the scene in the east room of the White House, although time long ago tempered the sentiment and dissipated the bitterness. With some reluctance Enos Clarke spoke of this historic occasion, explaining that it is difficult for those who did not live through those trying times in Missouri to comprehend the conditions which prevailed :
"The feeling over our grievances had become intense. We represented the extreme anti-slavery sentiment. We were the republicans who had been in accord with Fremont's position. Both sides to the controversy in Missouri had repeatedly presented their views to President Lincoln, but this delegation of seventy was the most imposing and most formal protest which had been made to the Gamble state administration and the national adminis- tration's policy in Missouri. The attention of the whole country, it seemed, had been drawn to Missouri. Our delegation met with a series of ovations. When we reached Washington we were informed that Secretary Chase proposed to tender us a reception. We were entertained by him the evening of the day we were received at the White House."
"Who was the author of the address, Mr. Clarke?"
"The address was the result of several meetings we held after we reached Washing- ton. We were there nearly a week. Arriving on Saturday, we did not have our confer- ence at the White House until Wednesday. Every day we met in Willard's hall, on F street, and considered the address. Mr. Drake would read over a few paragraphs, and we would discuss them. At the close of the meeting Mr. Drake would say, 'I will call you together tomorrow to further consider this matter.' In that way the address progressed to the finish."
"How did the President receive you?"
"There was no special greeting. We went to the White House a few minutes before nine, in accordance with the appointment which had been made, and took seats in the east room. Promptly at nine the president came in, unattended save by one of his secretaries. He did not shake hands, but sat down in such a position that he faced us. He seemed a great ungainly, almost uncouth man. He walked with a kind of ambling gait. His face bore the look of depression, of deep anxiety. Mr. Drake stepped forward as soon as the Presi-
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dent had taken his seat and began to read the address. He had a deep, sonorous voice and he read slowly and in a most impressive manner. The reading occupied half an hour. At the conclusion Mr. Drake said this statement of our grievances had been prepared and signed by all of those present."
"Did the President seem to be much affected by the reading?"
"No. And at the conclusion he began to discuss the address in a manner that was very disappointing to us. He took up one phrase after another and talked about them without showing much interest. In fact, he seemed inclined to treat many of the matters contained in the paper as of little importance. The things which we had felt to be so serious Mr. Lincoln treated as really unworthy of much consideration. That was the tone in which he talked at first. He minimized what seemed to us most important."
"Did he indulge in any story telling or humorous comment?"
"No. There was nothing that seemed like levity at that stage of the conference. On the contrary, the President was almost impatient, as if he wished to get through with something disagreeable. When he had expressed the opinion that things were not so serious as we thought he began to ask questions, many of them. He elicited answers from differ- ent members of the delegation. He started argument, parrying some of the opinions ex- pressed by us and advancing opinions contrary to the conclusions of our Committee of Seventy. This treatment of our grievances was carried so far that most of us felt a sense of deep chagrin. But after continuing in this line for some time the President's whole manner underwent change. It seemed as if he had been intent upon drawing us out. When satisfied that he fully understood us and had measured the strength of our purpose, the depth of our feeling, he took up the address as if new. He handled the various grievances in a most serious manner. He gave us the impression that he was disposed to regard them with as much concern as we did. After a while the conversation became colloquial between the President and the members of the delegation-more informal and mofe sympathetic. The change of tone made us feel that we were going to get con- sideration."
"Did the President make any reference to that part of the address about the 'factional quarrel'?"
"Yes, he did. And it was about the only thing he said that had a touch of humor in that long conversation. In the course of his reply to us he took up that grievance. 'Why,' he said, 'you are a long way behind the times in complaining of what I said upon that point. Governor Gamble was ahead of you. There came to me some time ago a letter complaining because I had said that he was a party to a factional quarrel, and I answered - that letter without reading it.' The features of the president took on a whimsical look as he continued : 'Maybe you would like to know how I could answer it without reading it. Well, I'll tell you. My private secretary told me such a letter had been received and I sat down and wrote to Governor Gamble in about these words: "I understand that a letter has been received from you complaining that I said you were a party to a factional quarrel in Missouri. I have not read that letter, and, what is more, I never will."' With that Mr. Lincoln dismissed our grievance about having been called parties to a factional quarrel. He left us to draw our own inference from what he said, as he had left Governor Gamble to construe the letter without help."
"Did the conference, progress to satisfactory conclusions after the President's manner changed?"
"We did not receive specific promises, but I think we felt much better toward the close than we had felt in the first hour. The President spoke generally of his purpose rather than with reference to conditions in Missouri. Toward the close of the conference he went" on to speak of his great office, of its burdens, of its responsibilities and duties. Among other things he said that in the administration of the government he wanted to be the President of the whole people and no section. He thought we, possibly, failed to compre- hend the enormous stress that rested upon him. 'It is my ambition and desire,' he said with considerable feeling, 'to so administer the affairs of the government while I remain Presi- dent that if at the end I shall have lost every other friend on earth I shall at least have one friend remaining and that one shall be down inside of me.'"
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